Chuck Feeney Biography
Chuck Feeney (Charles Francis “Chuck” Feeney) is an Irish American businessman, philanthropist and founder of The Atlantic Philanthropies born on 23rd April 1931 in , which is one of the largest private foundations in the world. He is best for his frugality, in living in a rented apartment, not owning a car or a house, and flying economy-class.
Chuck Feeney Age
Chuck Feeney was born on April 23, 1931 (he is 87 years old as of 2018)
Chuck Feeney Net worth
Chuck Feeney has an estimated net worth of $8 billion.
Chuck Feeney Family
Chuck Feeney was born to Leo Feeney (father) and Madaline Feeney (mother). He was raised in New Jersey with his two sisters Ursula Healy and Arlene Fitzpatrick.
Chuck Feeney Wife
Chuck Feeney married his first wife Danielle with whom he had four children. He later married another wife Helga Feeney who is a former Secretary.
Chuck Feeney Kids
Chuck Feeney has four children Juliette M. Feeney, Timsit Feeney, Caroleen A. Feeney, Diane V. Feeney, Leslie D. Feeney Baily and one son Patrick A. Feeney.
Chuck Feeney Education
Chuck Feeney graduated from Elizabeth’s St. Mary of the Assumption High School in 1949. He later joined Cornell University School of Hotel Administration where he got his first degree.
Chuck Feeney Businessman
Chuck Feeney he started investing after his high school education. He served as a U.S. Air Force radio operator during the Korean War, and began his career selling duty-free liquor to US naval personnel at Mediterranean ports in the 1950s. He founded the Atlantic Philanthropies, which is one of the largest private foundations in the world. He made his fortune as a co-founder of the Duty Free Shoppers Group, which pioneered the concept of duty-free shopping. Feeney gave away his fortune in secret for many years, until a business dispute resulted in his identity being revealed in 1997. In his life he donated away more than $8 million.
Chuck Feeney Duty-Free Shoppers
Chuck Feeney has another concept of improving “duty-free shopping” that lead to high offering and high-end concessions to travelers, and even free import taxes in its infancy, his college classmate Robert Warren Miller started selling duty-free liquor to American servicemen in Asia in the 1950s. This organization expanded the selling of cars and tobacco, and founded the Duty Free Shoppers Group (DFS Group) on November 7, 1960. The DFS began its operations in Hong Kong, it was later expanded to Europe and other continents. DFS’ first major breakthrough came in the early 1960s, when it secured the exclusive concession for duty-free sales in Hawaii, allowing it to market its products to Japanese travelers.
Eventually the DFS was expanded to off the airport and to get duty free stores and large downtown Galleria stores, and became the world’s largest travel retailer. By the mid-1990s, DFS was distributing profits of up to $300 million a year to Feeney, Miller, and two smaller partners. “The rich returns came about in large part because DFS, like most other retailers in Asia, took a far higher markup on Western luxury items than was the case in Europe and the U.S.
In New York, a retailer might price a designer handbag at 2.2 or 2.3 times the wholesale price. But in Asia, the retail price was a standard three times wholesale.” In 1996, him and his partner sold their stakes in DFS and to the French luxury conglomerate Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy (LVMH). Miller opposed the sale, and before a presumptive lawsuit could reveal that Feeney’s stake was owned not in fact by him but by The Atlantic Philanthropies, Feeney outed himself in a New York Times article written by Judith Miller. The Atlantic made an amount of $1.63 billion from its sale.
Chuck Feeney Philanthropy
In 1982 Chuck Feeney created The Atlantic Philanthropies, and in 1984, he secretly transferred to his entire 38.75% stake in DFS, then worth about $500 million, to the foundation. Not even his business partners knew that he no longer personally owned any part of DFS. For years, Atlantic gave away money in secret, requiring recipients to not reveal the sources of their donations. “Beyond Mr. Feeney’s reticence about blowing his own horn, ‘it was also a way to leverage more donations some other individual might contribute to get the naming rights.’” The largest single beneficiary of his giving is his alma mater Cornell University, which has received nearly $1 billion in direct and Atlantic gifts, including a donation of $350 million enabling the creation of Cornell’s New York City Tech Campus.
Through Atlantic, he donated around $1 billion to education in Ireland, mostly to third-level institutions such as the University of Limerick and Dublin City University. He has given substantial personal donations to Sinn Féin, a left-wing Irish nationalist party that is historically associated with the IRA, and has worked to support peace efforts in Ireland. He has also supported the modernization of public-health structures in Vietnam. In February 2011, he became a signatory to The Giving Pledge. In his letter to Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, the founders of The Giving Pledge, he writes, “I cannot think of a more personally rewarding and appropriate use of wealth than to give while one is living to personally devote oneself to meaningful efforts to improve the human condition.
More importantly, today’s needs are so great and varied that intelligent philanthropic support and positive interventions can have greater value and impact today than if they are delayed when the needs are greater.” He gave away his last bid of $7 million in 2016, to the same recipient of his first charitable donations: Cornell. Over the course of his life, he has given away more than $8 billion. In July 2017 The Atlantic Philanthropies noted the existence of an advance-fee scam email claiming to distribute money to “randomly selected individuals” worldwide, and using a link to the Wikipedia article to falsely verify the scammer’s identity as “Charles Feeney”.
Chuck Feeney Accolades
Chuck Feeney has been called the “James Bond of philanthropy”, because of his secrecy and success. In 1997, his benefiary have ranked among the grandest of any living American.” He has shunned publicity, although he cooperated in his 2007 biography, The Billionaire Who Wasn’t: How Chuck Feeney Made and Gave Away a Fortune Without Anyone Knowing. He is also the subject of a documentary by RTÉ Factual, titled Secret Billionaire: The Chuck Feeney Story.
In 2010 he received the Cornell Icon of Industry Award. In 2012, all the universities in Ireland, North and South, jointly conferred an Honorary Doctorate of Laws on Feeney. During the year, he received Ireland’s “Presidential Distinguished Service Award” for Irish Abroad. In 2012, he was awarded the UCSF Medal for his outstanding contributions by the University of California, San Francisco’s health science mission. In 2014, Warren Buffett said of Feeney, ” is my hero and Bill Gates’ hero. He should be everybody’s heroes.
Chuck Feeney Quotes
- It’s the intelligent thing to be frugal.
- I happen to enjoy grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches.
- I believe strongly in ‘giving while living.’ I see little reason to delay giving when so much good can be achieved through supporting worthwhile causes today. Besides, it’s a lot more fun to give while you live than to give while you are dead.
- People used to ask me how I got my jollies, and I guess I’m happy when what I’m doing is helping people and unhappy when what I’m doing isn’t helping people.
- I don’t dislike money, but there’s only so much money you can use.
- I want the last cheque I write to bounce.
- I was raised as a Catholic, but I got up to go to church because I thought I’d be hit by a bolt of lightning if I didn’t.
- I believe that people of substantial wealth potentially create problems for future generations unless they themselves accept responsibility to use their wealth during their lifetime to help worthwhile causes.
- When you’ve got the money, you spend it. When you’ve spent it all, let someone else get going and spend theirs.
- I was raised as a Catholic, but I got up to go to church because I thought I’d be hit by a bolt of lightning if I didn’t.
- I watched a little girl cover her face up and leave her hands in front of her mouth. I saw that girl after surgery, and she was smiling… that’s a great source of satisfaction.
- People who have money have an obligation. I wouldn’t say I’m entitled to tell them what to do with it but to use it wisely.
- I’m a competitive type of person, whether it’s playing a game of basketball or playing business games
- 75th birthday celebrations that I would be entitled to fly first class. I’ll be honest, I’m not good at flying anymore. To my credit, I can stretch out on two coach seats.
- I had one idea that never changed in my mind – that you should use your wealth to help people.
- There are restaurants you can go in and pay $100 a person for a meal. I get as much satisfaction out of paying $25.
- Most large companies structure their affairs so that they minimize their tax payments. As long as you do it within the law, it’s OK.
- When you are 81 years old, you don’t really need a lot of the trappings of wealth.
- I became convinced that there was greater satisfaction from giving my money away and seeing something come out of the ground, like a hospital or a university.
- I had one idea that never changed in my mind – that you should use your wealth to help people.
- It is logical for a U.S. person to give their money away while they are alive, as the government will take it from you when you die in taxes.
- I was with a special services unit in the Korean war, and when I got out, the biggest thing I got was a GI scholarship.
- I always tried to live my life as though nothing changed. People would say, ‘You can have a Rolls-Royce’. I’d say to that, ‘What do I want with a Rolls-Royce when I can have a Volkswagen or a bike?’ Some people get carried away with the juice.
- I suppose in the back of my mind I was always one of those guys who had a disdain for money. It had a value if you wanted to buy something, but if you didn’t want to buy something, you didn’t need it.
- I always tried to live my life as though nothing changed. People would say, ‘You can have a Rolls-Royce’. I’d say to that, ‘What do I want with a Rolls-Royce when I can have a Volkswagen or a bike?’ Some people get carried away with the juice.
- I’m a shabby dresser.
- I cannot think of a more personally rewarding and appropriate use of wealth than to give while one is living.
- A lot of wealthy people, they don’t realize they have the alternatives of spending the money for good.
- How to become a millionaire? Become a billionaire first.